Walking into the huddle I expected to see familiar faces. It was odd looking up at faces that I didn't recognize, voices that didn't register, jerseys that didn't match. It felt like somehow my senses or my logic were lying to me. That was my first thought at the beginning of the first practice of four leading up to the Senior Bowl.

The first station we divided into at practice placed me with the linebackers. It has been a long-time habit for me to refer to linebackers on my team as, "linebacker buddies." The linebackers at Perry, now my alma mater, literally treated each other like brothers. We slept at one another's houses during the school week, ate together, worked out and studied together, we were a team within a team.

Going to my first station of N-H Senior Bowl practice that camaraderie could be felt lurking somewhere under the egos and competition, but it wasn't strong yet. I'm curious to see how close three inside linebackers can get in only five days.

Our team works well together. It's odd not being the biggest stud on the field. The team does mesh well though, it seems like the elite athletes share a kind of bond.

Confidence didn't always surround me at Perry, but on this all-star team, you can feel the get-it-done attitude. It's humbling in a sense. Like I said, I'm not the biggest fastest or strongest on the field, and now I'm not as alone when I think about being a champion; the attitude of a championship team is there. That is a sensation that I have only felt in wrestling, it is completely unique for me to feel that on the turf.

Practice went fast but the car ride home went faster. At first all I could think of was how much I wanted to eat, but as I was going down the highway I started to smell the sweat from the pads. The smell wasn't bad. It was a smell unique to the best sport in the world.

I felt all the memories of high school football slowly creep into my mind, each time I could smell that smell of the pads. Like standing out in the rain as a sophomore waiting to be called in, the big hits I both watched and gave, the locker room after victory or the bus after defeat, the red jerseys and crowd all around, the fresh "BREAK!" coming out of the huddle that cut through the static coming from the stands.

It made me more than happy, it made me proud to be a Perry Pirate. It makes me proud to know that almost everyone else that left Mentor's field that night probably thought the same thing when they smelled that smell.